Nokia To Relaunch One Of It’s Most Iconic Phones Ever

Sequels to legendary devices are an iffy-affair. Here’s hoping Nokia gets it right.

To begin with, before getting to the locus of this article, I would like to say that I’m content with how 2017 has so far shaped up; as opposed to the ruthless year of 2016.

Mankind seems to toning down/up to its original pitch, the MUN (Model United Nations: the simulated academic competition that teaches students about diplomacy, international relations, and the functioning of the United Nations) is still going strong in the league and the world of tech is on the anvil of major change over the next few months (well, that’s just a subjective perspective).

But all of the aforementioned events collectively do not generate as much happiness to me, as to what I believe we’re going to witness in the upcoming Mobile World Congress, 2017!

The mecca of all things Smart Devices, the MWC will undoubtedly have a gaggle of next-gen devices and paraphernalia, however what’s got my heart singing a windsong is the prospect of Nokia returning to our lives!

If reports leaked by a tech website are to be believed, HMD Global Oy, the new owner of the Nokia brand name, is set to release a fleet of new phones including the new Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and the re-launch of the… hold your heart, Nokia 3310 later this month at the Mobile World Congress 2017, in Barcelona

Yes, I’ll wait to let that sink in.

Released in the year 2000, the Nokia 3310 was a small little package that had the prestige of being one of the first few phones ever without an external antenna.

For most of us in India, it was our first phone back when cellular telephony was just about taking seed — you had to suck in your breath just before you got on a call, then speak rapidly without taking a breath, and hang up before the other person could respond or ask another question!

Back then, an incoming call cost you (the recipient) INR 16 per minute — outgoing calls were an extravagance that set you back INR 24 per minute. India discovered a new utility of missed calls thanks to such tariffs.

Anyway back to the Nokia 3310 — it had all the chops phones needed back then — small, sexy, robust and indefatigable. Most people who owned it, loved it. If you still don’t remember it, here’s a photo of the mighty giant.

Probably the most beloved handset ever, the Nokia 3310 was released in India as an affordable phone in 2000. It ended up changing the cellular telephony in India, and pretty much the world.

It was the dawn of change in the mobile industry in more ways than one.

Available in 6 different replaceable colour shells, the 3310 had the ability to become a new phone almost any time one wanted — blue to grey to red to black, all by switching Nokia’s Xpress On Covers. Unlike today’s phones which have endless number of features that could be used for advertising and marketing purposes, Nokia 3310 had its colourful shells to speak for itself.

Also, it may be worth noting that the 3310 did not have much competition because, as mentioned above, it was only the beginning of the curve that would eventually decide the trajectory of the Mobile Industry.

The Nokia 3310 had no real “fancy footwork” — all the features that Nokia 3310 sported were navigated and performed using the 16 buttons on the handset. There was no swiping or double tapping that was involved in this smart-for-its-time phone.

The best part? It was nigh near unbreakable!

I believe the 3310 was one of the most reliable and perhaps the most indestructible phones ever made in the history of mankind. I remember chucking it out of a moving bus one morning, in a fit of rage. It met a large tree, smack-bang in the middle and splintered into 5 different pieces. Friends frantically retrieved it, put it back together, breathlessly (it did cost INR 12,000 back in 2000, if memory serves me well).

Need I say, everything worked. The phone was unscathed (though we didn’t remember to check the tree if it needed first-aid, our bad).

What’s even more surprising is, that this was not a one-off case. This is what Nokia stood for. Almost every phone Nokia has ever made, could prove wrong, the dictum of “being stuck between a rock and a hard place…”. A Nokia device would just shrug off the dilemma.

Another wildly acclaimed and loved feature of Nokia 3310 was the surprisingly bizarre battery backup; and when we use the word ‘backup’, we think the phone did justice to it like no other mobile phone.
The four bars that indicated the percentage of battery remaining almost seemed painted on! They barely ever changed. Sometimes the phone used to go for about a whole week with one full round of charge.

It provided insane amount of talking hours and several 90’s kids are thankful for it. Why, you ask? Because even after spending 5 hours playing the historic Snake II game on the phone, all the battery lost was perhaps 14 microns of charge.

Snake II — Ah! The game was extremely popular — played everywhere and by all who could lay their hands on the 3310. It was so, probably as it only had one drill — to keep the snake moving, using 2, 4, 6 and 8 numbered keys, to its fodder.

Fun Fact — Nokia 3310 sported a 1.4 inch screen. To put that into perspective for the ones who aren’t good at maths, that is about half length of your pinky finger.

Unlike the smarter-than-humans phones of today, Nokia 3310 was not stuffed with too many features. It had a clock, 4 games, calendar, texting and calling — ideally what phones should be used for. The two other creative sides of Nokia 3310 were its customisable ringtones and extremely friendly welcome screen — both of which are usually missing from phones of today.

Come 2005, Nokia stopped making these phones. They did release a stat report — announcing that more than 126 million Nokia 3310 handsets had been sold in five years!

The whopping figure is not an overstatement given that there are still people who possess this handset, in working condition.

Back to 2017.

More information relating to the new 3310 would be given out at MWC 2017.

But, people can’t quell their pulsating hearts. To quote the happiness of a Twitter Fan, “For some reason, a part of me is in seventh heaven over the ninth cloud, What a time to be alive”. A bit of an exaggeration it may seem, but the joy and nostalgia attached to this iconic phone is real.

The problem is, that like the BlackBerry Classic found out, the 3310 will have it’s own very large shoes to fill. And that may just be ironic.

I wonder if the company would strike the right kind of feature-mix as the original Nokia 3310 flaunted. Sometimes, gushing folks like me want everything in a sequel and if HMD’s engineers overdo it, that might just ruin it all, including the memories.

More reports pertaining to the release, to follow.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.